Poll: HL2 Cover Systems: Yes or no

[mathias53]

Constantly Ive been poking through the forums and it seems that everybody is split up between Half-Life having a cover system. Now is the time to decide. Yes or No. Simple. I say no. What do you think?

BY COVER SYSTEM I MEAN, A BUTTON YOU HIT TO EITHER LEAN AGAINST A WALL OR STICK TO ONE. LIKE IN GEARS OF WAR OR DRAKES UNCHARTED.

 

[thejoblot]

No. When I think of a cover system, I think of a more tactical shooter like Gears of War or Rainbow Six. Half-Life's just not that type of game.

 

[shadow skill]

I say yes, because its dumb to be strafing left and right behind a wall and having to completely expose yourself in order to fire at enemeis or return fire.

 

[Holydevil]

I say no. Unless Valve really want to put it in. I have complete faith in them.

 

[Pocket Apocalypse]

I voted no, but as far as I'm concerned, HL2 had a cover system; the crouch button. Okay, a 'look round corners' button might be kinda useful, but I managed without (and I suck at all FPSs).

 

[Portoparty]

no, it seems that most peple these days cant stand taking a little damage to get the job done, no pain no gain.

 

[JakubK666]

No...because that would conflict with the fundamental rule in Half-Life.

Gaming Bible, The Gospel of Gordon, 14:3 > "Thou shalt never play Half-Life in third person view."

 

[fix-the-spade]

Cover systems, for people too stupid to crouch...

I've never understood what's wrong with the old run-crouch-lean system beloved of SWAT, CoD, Rainbow six etc. Surely if you put a bulletproof wall somewhere people will hide behind it.

A blind fire system (where you hold the gun above your head or out to the side to fire, but remain in first person so you can't see what your aiming at) would be good in a fps. It would allow you to return fire without getting some strange disembodied God eye but also without exposing your self completely. It also gives the other guy a better chance of surviving an unbalanced situation.
In Half life even that is probably probably too much, but it would a nice thing to see in multiplayer games like CSS or battlefield.

But having to press a button to use an arbitrarily decided piece of cover always strikes me as odd.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

No, no, no. We already have a hundred different games with cover systems and we don't need the next Half-Life to be another me-too bandwagon jumper. Introducing a cover system would remove a lot of the intensity of the action and slow the game down far too much. Why some people don't understand this boggles my mind.

 

[Natural Hazard]

no, save it for 3rd person shooters and the likes

 

[shadow skill]

I say yes, because its dumb to be strafing left and right behind a wall and having to completely expose yourself in order to fire at enemeis or return fire.

You hated Goldeneye and Perfect Dark than?

I say No. half-Life is a barebones shooter when it comes to the action. It does everything right to make the game challenging. Hell, when you go with a cover system it makes the game ten times easier. I hate cover systems.

Uhh no because those were some of the first shooters to ever come out. Cover mechanics have been done in first person before and they work quite well. Even in a game designed to be played using an over the sholder camera (GRAW 2.) The real kicker is that you wouldn't even need to use it if you did not want to.

As far as slowing down the action that's just bull, if that was true then every time you decided to strafe behind a wall you would be slowing down the game, of course you probably can't even get through the game without doing that since standing out in the open is just bound to get you killed.

These arguments against the whole idea sound alot like the complaints about the nano suit in Crysis, all the suit powers did was give the player multiple ways of tackling a problem. This is of course a good thing and adds more depth to the game overall.

Fix-the-spade do you not realize that all cover systems are just a way of collapsing the lean keys in some fps' onto one key?

 

[propertyofcobra]

What the hell do you think that holding items up with the gravity gun to absorb fire is, if not cover?

Half life already has a cover system as long as it has the gravity gun. It doesn't need a bunch of useless cocking up by having you get glued to whatever surface you're slightly near.
Cover systems are useless, QUINTUPLY SO in first person shooters. God, anyone who seriously wants a cover system in an FPS has to get their brain reattached to the fingers they post their crap with.

 

[ReepNeep]

Cover systems, for people too stupid to crouch...

I've never understood what's wrong with the old run-crouch-lean system beloved of SWAT, CoD, Rainbow six etc. Surely if you put a bulletproof wall somewhere people will hide behind it.

A blind fire system (where you hold the gun above your head or out to the side to fire, but remain in first person so you can't see what your aiming at) would be good in a fps. It would allow you to return fire without getting some strange disembodied God eye but also without exposing your self completely. It also gives the other guy a better chance of surviving an unbalanced situation.
In Half life even that is probably probably too much, but it would a nice thing to see in multiplayer games like CSS or battlefield.

But having to press a button to use an arbitrarily decided piece of cover always strikes me as odd.

My personal opinion is that cover systems allow people to map all those functions to a single button on a gamepad.

Take Stalker for example: sprint, walk, jump, crouch 1, crouch 2(analogous to prone?), lean left, lean right. Add use bandage, weapon mode, iron sights, switch weapon up and down, toggle grenade launcher, inventory, fire, activate, grab and a couple of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting.

That many commands won't fit on a gamepad but if you lump the movement commands in the first list into a single command, they will.

All told, I don't think cover systems are appropriate in first person games because that perspective limits what you can see of your immediate surroundings and the 'wall hump' button inhibits freedom of movement. I much prefer the freeform hiding methods used in most PC FPS games, but for 3rd person or console games they can work pretty well.

 

[Eagle Est1986]

100% no! With 32 votes, most impressive, useless poll award?

 

[mathias53]

no, simply no.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

No. When I think of a cover system, I think of a more tactical shooter like Gears of War or Rainbow Six. Half-Life's just not that type of game.

+ 1.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

As far as slowing down the action that's just bull, if that was true then every time you decided to strafe behind a wall you would be slowing down the game, of course you probably can't even get through the game without doing that since standing out in the open is just bound to get you killed.

It's not bull, in every game I've played which uses a cover mechanic there is always a delay when you want to leave cover and move to attack your enemies. Plus the combat would be reduced to automatically jumping towards the nearest piece of cover and using GoW style fixed shooting. Which is slower than ducking behind a crate, jumping up to shoot and then charging the enemy.

You do have to use cover in Half-Life, but it feels freer than being stuck to a wall in Gears. It's not that style of game, and I really don't want to see Gordon backed up against a wall SWAT style. That would just be wierd.

 

[Meshakhad_v1legacy]

Half-Life isn't that kind of shooter. It isn't a militaristic shooter. Gordon isn't a trained soldier. He's a physicist who happens to have the "badass" gene. Taking cover is for hard-boiled soldiers. Moving around is for unstoppable badasses like Gordon Freeman.

It fits in with the fact that most of Half-Life can be described as "Gordon goes from point A to point B, and kills everything in his path." Half-Life 2? Gordon goes from City 17 to Black Mesa East to the coastal base to Nova Prospect to City 17 to the Citadel. Episode One? Gordon & Alyx start at the Citadel, go in to stop the reactor, then get out of the city. Episode Two? Gordon and Alyx go from outside City 17 to White Forest. In most cases, the only reason you need to kill enemies is so they don't kill you before you reach your destination.

I vote no on the cover system.